Building a Hyper-V 2016 Cluster for under $2500

BUILDING A HYPER-V 2016 CLUSTER FOR UNDER

$2500

CONTENTS Highlights............................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 3 Shopping List..................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 5 Optimal Items.................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 6 Parts Usage Assessment................................................................................................................................................................................................ 8 Unboxing and Assembling the Items.......................................................................................................................................................................10 A Pictorial Guide to the Components......................................................................................................................................................................10 Hyper-V Host Assemply.................................................................................................................................................................................................17 1. Storage Server Only: Insert Drives in the Upper Drive Bay.......................................................................................................................18 2. Insert Drives in the Lower Drive Bay...................................................................................................................................................................21 3. Install Memory.............................................................................................................................................................................................................21 4. Install Network Adapters.........................................................................................................................................................................................21 Closing Up..........................................................................................................................................................................................................................23 Configure the Hyper-V Hosts’ BIOS..........................................................................................................................................................................24 Boot Sequence..................................................................................................................................................................................................................24 Sata Operation: RAID on...............................................................................................................................................................................................25 Smart Reporting: Enable Smart Reporting..........................................................................................................................................................26 TPM Security: Activate..................................................................................................................................................................................................27 CPU XD support: Enable CPU XD support..............................................................................................................................................................28 Intel® SpeedStep™: Disabled......................................................................................................................................................................................28 C-States Control: Disable C States...........................................................................................................................................................................28 Deep Sleep Control: Disable Deep Sleep Control...............................................................................................................................................29 Virtualization: Enable Entel-Virtualization to Technolody.............................................................................................................................29 VT for Direct I/O: Enable VT for Direct I/O..............................................................................................................................................................30 Trusted Execution: Enable Trusted Execution.....................................................................................................................................................31 Applying BIOS Changes.................................................................................................................................................................................................31 Configuring the Storage Host’s BIOS......................................................................................................................................................................32 Configuring Intel Active Management on the Hyper-V Hosts........................................................................................................................32 Configuring AMT with a Web Browser....................................................................................................................................................................33 Remote Power Control..................................................................................................................................................................................................34 AMT Network Settings...................................................................................................................................................................................................35 AMT User Configuration................................................................................................................................................................................................36 Accessing AMT with KVM Software...........................................................................................................................................................................36 Accessing an Intel AMT Host with MeshCommander........................................................................................................................................37 Configuring RAID.............................................................................................................................................................................................................41 Installing an Operating System.................................................................................................................................................................................45 Installing from USB Key................................................................................................................................................................................................45 Installing via AMT............................................................................................................................................................................................................46 Where to Go From Here.................................................................................................................................................................................................48 About Altaro.......................................................................................................................................................................................................................49 About Eric Siron...............................................................................................................................................................................................................51

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HIGHLIGHTS The tighter your budget is, the greater the challenge of meeting the needs of your computing infrastructure. Whether you’re a very small business trying to achieve superior uptime in an always-on customer service world or an administrator in a notso-small business trying to test new software without impacting live systems, you need something more than just a basic host. This document outlines an inexpensive build for a fully-functional and extensible system that can support a two node cluster of Hyper-V hosts with independent storage. This design is suitable for production purposes in a small business or as a test lab. Highlights of this build: •

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Two hosts that support the most-requested features in Hyper-V Server 2016 ◦◦

Quad-core Intel CPU (Xeon E3-1225 v3)

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16 GB of RAM

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250 GB fault-tolerant internal storage

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5x 1GbE connections for teamed and multi-channel connectivity

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Out-of-band remote console connectivity, even when powered off

One host that acts as a NAS ◦◦

Dual-core Intel CPU (G3220)

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12 GB of RAM

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6 TB usable fault-tolerant internal storage

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3x 1GbE connections for MPIO and/or SMB Multipath connectivity

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Smart 24-port switch that includes such features as 802.1q VLAN and LACP port aggregation

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Upgradable hosts

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Notes about this build, including limitations •

The original incarnation of this cluster was built during the fifth Technology Preview iteration (TP5) of Windows Server 2016. It has since been updated to the production release of 2016 without issues. This document does not explain how to install or configure Hyper-V Server or Windows Server 2016, but I have verified that the new operating system does work well on this hardware.

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The pricing mentioned in the title does not include any Windows operating systems or any software licenses. You are responsible for properly licensing your environment.

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The storage host is internally redundant, but represents a single-point of failure. A second, similar host could be purchased and configured with backup and/or replication technology, including Storage Replica.

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The RAID controllers in each of these systems is not based on dedicated hardware. For the hosts that doesn’t matter because the most performancedependent virtual machines will not be stored locally. For the storage server it should not matter because the host will not be doing anything except performing storage functions. A hardware RAID alternative will be covered in the shopping list section – better yet, it won’t take you much over the $2500 line.

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The manufacturer’s material on the server indicates that it supports 4x 3.5” drives and 2x 2.5” drives, but that the additional drives require an expansion kit. I was unable to locate any such expansion kit. There will be more about storage options in the section of this document devoted to the storage server.

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The manufacturer’s material indicates a total of 6 possible drives, but the motherboard only has power and data connectors for 4. This will be discussed further in the shopping list section.

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As built in this document, each Hyper-V host will have 16GB of RAM. It will leave two slots open for an additional 16GB. These hosts are limited by the Intel CPUs to a maximum of 32GB of RAM.

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The storage host uses an Intel G3220 processor which does not share the same feature set as the Xeon E3-1225 CPU in the Hyper-V hosts. This host does not support hardware TPM (helpful for BitLocker and related tech), will not

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support nested virtualization, and (arguably most importantly) cannot run the Intel AMT software for out-of-band remote management. •

The RAID controller supports RAID-0, RAID-1, RAID-10, and RAID-5.

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Most of the available internal slots will be used during this build, thereby limiting your future expansion options. If you have other hardware add-ons in mind, please refer to the sections on each host for more information.

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There is no monitor, keyboard, or mouse included in this build.

SHOPPING LIST In order to achieve optimal pricing, I purchased through Amazon. Stock amounts and pricing will vary. I did forego some cheaper alternatives so that I was always buying from a vendor that used Amazon as the distributor (will either say nothing about the seller or will be marked as Fulfilled by Amazon) because it seems fairly common for people to have better experiences that way. As I browsed, I saw notes from other customers indicating that the Intel network adapters in particular were commonly counterfeited. Before ordering anything, please read the rest of this section and the Parts Usage and Assessment section so that you understand how your purchase will be put to use. ITEM

LINK

QUANTITY

REFERENCE PRICE (USD)

Dell PowerEdge T20 (Host)

amazon.com/dp/ B01LKQJCBK

2

$509.00

Dell PowerEdge T20 (Storage)

amazon.com/dp/ B00IF7RDZK

1

$349.00

Dual Port NIC

amazon.com/dp/ B000BMZHX2

5

$42.90

Memory

amazon.com/gp/ product/B008EMA5VU

2

$125.00

Hyper-V Host Drives

amazon.com/gp/ product/B001VKY8GA

4

$18.65

Storage Host Drives

amazon.com/gp/ product/B005T3GRN2

4

$60.00

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ITEM

LINK

QUANTITY

REFERENCE PRICE (USD)

Network Switch

amazon.com/gp/ product/B00I5W5EGA

1

$157.95

Uninterruptible Power Supply

amazon.com/gp/ product/B009TZTGWK

1

$166

On the day that I priced these items for this document, the total price is $2,471. If you’re in the United States and have Prime shipping, that’s the all-in cost.

OPTIONAL ITEMS If you double the memory purchase, you can upgrade the two Hyper-V hosts to their CPU-limited maximum of 32GB. I chose to use the on-chip RAID controller for all of the systems. It will not provide the same level of protection and performance as a fully hardware-based RAID controller. For the design methodology that I have in mind, the performance difference will not be measurable, and certainly not detectable during any production load that is otherwise adequately scaled to this hardware. The improved protection of hardware RAID would be the primary driving factor behind an upgrade. The secondary reason would be to use more than 5 drives. If you wish to employ a hardware RAID controller, you will need the following: ITEM

LINK

QUANTITY

REFERENCE PRICE (USD)

RAID Controller

amazon.com/gp/ product/B0050SLTPC

1

$151.00

SAS to SATA Connector

amazon.com/gp/ product/B001L9DU88

1

$19.00

For less than $200, this will get you a fully-functional hardware-based RAID with many desirable features, including data scrubbing. It does not have a battery backup, unfortunately, but that should be covered by the UPS. If you wish to use more than four drives, you’ll need additional power connectors and additional SATA connectors. The RAID card and cable listed above will cover the data

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connectors. For additional SATA power connections, you will need the following item (or something similar): ITEM SATA Power Splitter

LINK amazon.com/gp/ product/B0086OGN9E

QUANTITY

REFERENCE PRICE (USD)

1

$6.00

With all of these options, your total buy-in will still be within a few hundred dollars of the $2500 USD target. To make things a little cheaper, look at your network adapters. I chose dual port Intel adapters because many shops prefer to go with familiar, big brand names. There’s nothing directly wrong with these adapters; they’ve worked well in my system. However, they’re an older model, and one feature that they are missing is RSS. According to the specification sheet, they support a single RSS queue, but that isn’t really helpful. I know that the Syba models with the Realtek 8111 chipset support RSS (ex: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01HH5YEKC/). If you do some shopping around, you can find dual port adapters for less than $20 USD.

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PARTS USAGE ASSESSMENT Before you buy anything, let’s take a look at how all of the parts in the previous section are going to be put to use. This will help you to understand what you’re using your money on and will help you think of ideas of how you might modify the build to better suit your own situation. The basic steps that I am going to take are: 1. Remove the RAM that ships with each of the Hyper-V hosts and use it to extend the RAM in the storage server. 2. Use the purchased memory kits in each Hyper-V host so that they have 16GB. 3. Remove the 1TB drives that ship with the Hyper-V hosts. Replace them with a pair of 250GB drives in a RAID-1 mirror. 4. Place all four of the 2TB drives in the Shopping List inside the storage server. Use the on-chip RAID controller to configure it as a RAID-5. 5. Install two of the dual-port Intel NICs in the Hyper-V hosts. 6. Install the remaining dual-port Intel NIC in the storage host. 7. Configure the smart switch with trunked LAGs for the Hyper-V hosts to use convergence. 8. Connect all devices to the UPS in the Shopping List. The USB connector and control software will be on the storage server. It will have a power-outage response script that shuts down all of the virtual machines and the two Hyper-V hosts prior to shutting down the storage server. Some other thoughts, including things that you need to be aware of before buying these systems: •

The two Hyper-V hosts ship with a DVD drive, but the storage server does not. As configured, it won’t have anywhere to put a DVD drive. I personally deployed Windows Server from a USB key. Other options for OS deployment would be an external DVD drive or PXE booting.

•

I don’t have any alternative use in mind for the 1TB drives that ship with

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the Hyper-V hosts. If you like, you can just use those for Hyper-V without redundancy. For no more usage than they’ll see, your danger levels are low. I will be running domain controllers from local storage, so I prefer to have redundancy. Another option would be to replace and/or augment the internal storage with one or more SSDs, which will increase reliability and boot speed. The cost of SSD will not really provide a reasonable return and will limit any options that you would have to use local storage on the hosts. A third option would be to purchase additional 1TB drives instead of multiple 250GB drives to mirror the drives that ship with the hosts. The reason I didn’t do that was because I didn’t know anything about the internal drives in advance and I prefer to mirror matched drives. •

I’ve repeatedly said that the reports of the demise of RAID-5 have been very premature and I stand beside that statement (as do the statistics). However, I don’t think that I would use any larger drives than the 2TB disks that I selected for this build in a RAID-5 configuration. If I did, I would be certain to purchase the hardware RAID controller so that I could perform data scrubs. That’s more about reliability of large platters than anything else. Performance isn’t much of an issue since, in a four-spindle array, RAID-10 will not be much faster than RAID-5 in any usage. The difference is certainly not meaningful in traditionally read-heavy server usage. If your usage will be write-heavy, consider using RAID-10. If you’d rather use larger disks, choose RAID-10.

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UNBOXING AND ASSEMBLING THE ITEMS The following discussion will take you through assembling all of the items from the original Shopping List. There is no direct coverage of the optional items, because I do not have those.

A PICTORIAL GUIDE TO THE COMPONENTS Netgear GS724T smart switch:

Crucial 16GB memory kit (2):

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Seagate ST2000DM001 2 terabyte hard drive (4):

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Western Digital WD2500AVVS 250GB hard drive (4):

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Intel PRO/1000 PT Dual Port Network Adapter (5):

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Tripp Lite SMART1500LCDT Smart Uninterruptible Power Supply:

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Hyper-V Host (2):

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Storage Server host:

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HYPER-V HOST ASSEMBLY Start by removing the sides from the server computers. These cases can be opened without tools. Simply lift up on the lever at the top of the case’s right panel (when viewed from the front), then pull the side away:

This is an inside shot of the storage server:

I’ve marked where we’re going to work in the order that we’re going to tackle the items.

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1. STORAGE SERVER ONLY: INSERT DRIVES IN THE UPPER DRIVE BAY This is probably the most difficult part of what we’re going to do, which you should take as very good news because it’s not difficult at all. First, we need to remove the front of the case. There are four fairly large black tabs along the front edge. Just lift them up and the front will hinge off from the opposite side.

With the front removed, next you need to slide the drive bay. Pull downward on the

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large blue retaining clip in the same direction as the arrow. It doesn’t move far, just enough to clear the mounting screw. While holding that in its extended position, push/ pull the drive bay so that it slides out from the front of the chassis:

Now you need to extract the blue drive carriers from the cage. They pull right out.

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Inserting a drive into a carrier is a mostly straightforward process. The carrier’s plastic is very flexible, so you just need to bend it enough to place the drive inside. There are four metal posts that align with the drive’s normal mounting holes, so you will only be able to seat the drive comfortably if it is in the correct orientation:

Once you have both drives in the carriers, insert them into the drive bay. They cannot be comfortably inserted in an incorrect orientation. With the drives placed, reinsert the bay into the chassis and reinstall the front cover. Unhook the cabling from beneath the cage and connect the drives to power and data.

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2. INSERT DRIVES IN THE LOWER DRIVE BAY The drive carriers in the lower drive bay pull straight out. Load the drives into the carriers and return them to the bay. The last photo in the preceding sub-section illustrates how drives are loaded. Connect the power and data cables that are conveniently located nearby.

3. INSTALL MEMORY Remove the memory sticks from the two Hyper-V hosts and install them in the storage server. The “best” configuration will be to use slots 1, 2, and 3 (two leftmost and the rightmost slot). This will allow the first 8GB of RAM to be dual-channel while the final 4GB will “only” be single-channel. I remember being very stressed about the memory layout in my first computer that supported dual-channel memory and I know that a lot of people still are. Let me assure you that, in the intervening 20ish years since that first computer, I have never once been affected in any way whether using single- or dualchannel memory. Not once. This is a storage server. It doesn’t matter. Install a pair of 8 GB memory sticks in each of the Hyper-V hosts. Use the slots with the white clips: second from the left and the rightmost. They are numbered 1 and 2. Singlechannel vs. dual-channel doesn’t really matter here either, but no point in not getting dual if it’s possible.

4. INSTALL NETWORK ADAPTERS Installing the network adapters is also a tool-less procedure… probably. If you look at section 4 of the screenshot at the start of this section, you’ll see a black tab with a blue square on the rear edge of the case near the bottom. Lifting this tab outward from the inside of the case will release all four of the slot covers. In the Hyper-V hosts, install a dual-port network adapter in the top slot and in the bottom slot. In the storage host, you can install the remaining dual-port adapter in either slot. If you’re going to be using an add-in RAID controller, I would recommend placing the RAID controller in the top slot as it has faster bus access that the dual-port adapter will not need. I did have a slight issue with a couple of the server slots. For as long as I can remember, add-in cards have shipped with their slot covers slightly bent at the edge that inserts

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into the computer. It helps to create some tension between the card and the outside of the case which increases stability. However, some of the adapters would not seat until I used a pair of pliers to slightly straighten the slot cover. I did some testing with the different cards that I had and determined that the problem was the server computer, not the cards.

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CLOSING UP All of your work is now complete. Close the hosts up. The UPS has enough capacity to run the hosts and the switch from battery. You might not want to place them in their “final home” until you’ve had a chance to discover the matching of physical adapters to the Windows representation, but other than that, the physical work is over.

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CONFIGURE THE HYPER-V HOSTS’ BIOS You’re going to need to make several changes to the BIOS setup of the Hyper-V hosts. You are certainly welcome to use UEFI mode, but I kept with the traditional BIOS route because UEFI adds nothing for me. Because you’ve changed the memory layout since the host shipped, its first boot will prompt you to enter BIOS. Go ahead and press F2 when prompted. If you missed that, you can press F2 at any time during the Dell logo screen to enter BIOS. These are the options that I used:

BOOT SEQUENCE My screenshot is going to look a little confusing, and will be different from what you see. That’s because I configured my system before coming back to get screenshots. The order that you want to select is CD/DVD/CD-RW Drive, then whatever shows for your primary hard disk, and finally the USB Storage Device. If you’ll be PXE booting for installation, the Onboard NIC should come next.

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SATA OPERATION: RAID ON All three of my hosts will use the on-chip RAID controller, so it must be enabled in BIOS. The default is RAID On, so this should be nothing more than confirmation.

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SMART REPORTING: ENABLE SMART REPORTING As far as I know, this really only takes effect during boot-up and is only visible if you’re in front of the screen. I will be using other ways to know if my drives are failing. However, I don’t know of any negatives of having SMART enabled, so I turned it on.

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TPM SECURITY: ACTIVATE The very first time that you access this screen, it will only have a single check-box named TPM Security. If you check it and then click Apply, TPM is enabled (Trusted Platform Module). You will need to leave and return for the other options to be enabled. You then need to set the option to Activated in order for TPM to work. The text says that the change takes effect immediately, which is sort of true. The options that depend upon TPM do not become available until you restart the system. I did not change any of the other items.

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CPU XD SUPPORT: ENABLE CPU XD SUPPORT I did not screenshot this option. There is only the single checkbox, and it is checked by default. XD is Intel’s no-execute option. It is required for Hyper-V.

INTEL® SPEEDSTEP™: DISABLED I did not screenshot this option either. Disable SpeedStep on your Hyper-V hosts as power management features can have several impacts on virtualization performance.

C-STATES CONTROL: DISABLE C STATES C States can have an extremely detrimental effect on Hyper-V virtualization, especially Live Migration.

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DEEP SLEEP CONTROL: DISABLE DEEP SLEEP CONTROL I did not capture a screenshot for this item. Windows/Hyper-V should prevent the host from ever entering deep sleep anyway, but do ensure that it is disabled in BIOS. Disabled is the default.

VIRTUALIZATION: ENABLE INTEL VIRTUALIZATION TECHNOLOGY This is the “basic” checkbox for Hyper-V virtualization support. It will enable most features on its own. It is required.

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VT FOR DIRECT I/O: ENABLE VT FOR DIRECT I/O VT is the “advanced” checkbox for Hyper-V virtualization support. It is required for nested Hyper-V.

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TRUSTED EXECUTION: ENABLE TRUSTED EXECUTION Trusted Execution will allow for additional protections via the TPM module. This feature will not even appear on your storage server. While it’s not especially required, especially in a low-security organization, there is no harm in enabling it. If the option is grayed out, you either did not fully enable the TPM or you have not rebooted since enabling the TPM.

APPLYING BIOS CHANGES Once you’ve got all of the settings the way that you like them, Apply saves them. Exit restarts the host. Repeat the above for the other Hyper-V host.

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CONFIGURING THE STORAGE HOST’S BIOS I’m not going to show screenshots for the storage host’s BIOS, mostly because the storage host doesn’t support AMT and I would have to use my cellphone camera. Fortunately, you don’t necessarily need to configure anything anyway. I did enable as many of the virtualization options as are available, since I will most likely use the storage server to run Hyper-V for testing and demonstrating Hyper-V Replica. I also enabled SMART reporting, even though it’s not any more useful on the storage server than it is on the Hyper-V hosts.

CONFIGURING INTEL ACTIVE MANAGEMENT ON THE HYPER-V HOSTS Intel’s Active Management Technology (AMT) allows for all sorts of remote management, including out-of-band KVM (keyboard-video-mouse) operations. It’s not as convenient or full-featured as other solutions, but it’s included with your two Hyper-V hosts at no additional charge. It was used to take all of the BIOS screenshots that you saw previously. Once enabled, AMT shares the onboard controller. Unfortunately, AMT is designed so that I can’t KVM to the host while I’m configuring AMT. So, I can’t show you how to configure it. I will tell you enough to get started, though. If you don’t want to read my text-only list, Intel has a document that can guide you through a couple of options for configuring AMT. They do not use the local console like my directions. I did not test them to ensure that they work. The document is available at: http://www.intel.com/content/dam/www/public/us/en/documents/guides/vprosetup-and-configuration-guide-for-intel-vpro-technology-based-pcs-guide.pdf To starting configuring AMT manually: 1. During boot-up, while the Dell logo is visible, press CTRL+P. 2. Press Enter on MEBx Login. The default password is “admin”. You will be required to change it on first login. The password must be complex; the error message you receive if your password isn’t complex enough is very generic. From the Intel documentation, the password must be a minimum of eight characters in length with at least one of each of the following: a. Numeric

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b. Uppercase letter c. Lowercase letter d. Non-alpha (the documentation says that underscores are considered alphanumeric, but doesn’t say which of the first three that it counts as) 3. Enter the AMT Configuration area, then the network settings area. Press Enter on Activate Network Access. Configure any other options that you’d like. At this point, you’ve done enough for remote access to work immediately, although it might behave a bit oddly. What I did was dive in to the AMT configuration and set a static IP address. From there, it worked automatically with AMT-compatible KVM software (which I’ll talk about after this). I did start by using DHCP, which also worked, but DNS didn’t pick it up, so I couldn’t find it. I would not spend much time in the textmode setup, because…

CONFIGURING AMT WITH A WEB BROWSER Once AMT has a password, you can access it via http://amt-ip:16992 in a web browser. The default username is “admin”, with the password that you specified above. There are a few information screens. For instance, I can see here that my CPU socket does indeed have a CPU in it, which is very important:

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For some reason, the Disk tab only shows disk 0 and 1. In my system, disk 0 is the DVD drive, which I really don’t care about. You might consider re-arranging the SATA data cables so that disk 0 and 1 are the two drives in your RAID-1 configuration. The items past all of the informational screens are where the real usefulness will be found. They do most of the things that the text-mode configurator does and some that it doesn’t.

REMOTE POWER CONTROL Switch to the Remote Control tab, shown below:

On the right, you can see several options. If your host is ever completely hung up, or you believe that the operating system has been compromised, you can force it to power off. Just select the item that you wish and click the Send Command button.

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AMT NETWORK SETTINGS This is actually the way that I initially switched from DHCP to static, not through the text-mode interface.

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AMT USER CONFIGURATION I did not add anyone to my AMT because I’m fine with the default “admin” account, so this screenshot probably does nothing for you:

Using the Change Admin button, you can change the AMT administrator’s user name and password.

ACCESSING AMT WITH KVM SOFTWARE Intel provides AMT with KVM ability, but they do not directly provide any free KVM client software that I can find. I think that I saw hints of an enterprise management suite that will do it, but I’m guessing that the reason that I didn’t find it directly is because they’re not going to give it to us for free. I found three applications that will connect to the KVM, but after some time tinkering with all of them, I’m only going to recommend one. 1. MeshCommander: http://www.meshcommander.com/meshcommander

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MeshCommander is free, it’s open source, and it’s rock solid. Use this one. 2. Spiceworks: http://www.spiceworks.com Spiceworks includes a great many things in one package. It does system monitoring and device discovering and help desk ticket tracking and all sorts of other things. Intel has made an AMT plugin available for it. However, Spiceworks is very heavy (needs a Windows server) and after two weeks of use, the KVM tool of the AMT plugin simply stopped working for me. There were no errors or warnings, it was just gone. Nothing I did brought it back. If you want to use Spiceworks for all of its other capabilities, that’s fine. If you’re just looking for Intel AMT support, MeshCommander is a drastically superior choice. 3. RealVNC’s Viewer Plus: https://www.realvnc.com/download/viewerplus/ I assume that most administrators have used some VNC tool at one point in their career, and RealVNC seems to be fairly common. Among other things, the paid Plus version adds support for Intel AMT KVM. It costs money though, which on its own isn’t a terrible thing. What is a terrible thing is that Viewer Plus struggles to maintain connectivity. I suffered frequent connection drops using the same desktop computer and target hosts that neither MeshCommander nor the Spiceworks plugin had any troubles with. Viewer Plus also does not have the range of capabilities that MeshCommander enjoys. Unless you’ve already got a paid copy of RealVNC Viewer Plus, I would not recommend it.

ACCESSING AN INTEL AMT HOST WITH MESHCOMMANDER MeshCommander is a very straightforward application to use. Start by downloading and installing the application (http://www.meshcommander.com/meshcommander). I won’t detail everything that this app can do, but I will show you how to get connected to a host and view its console. 1. In the center of the main screen, go to File->Add Intel AMT Computer or click the Adding link in the center of the main window:

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2. Fill out the Add Computer dialog with the necessary information. You don’t necessarily need to supply anything for Grouping Tags. Leave the Auth/ Security setting at Digest / None if using AMT defaults.

3. Upon clicking OK, you’ll be returned to the main screen where the host that you entered is now displayed. Click the Connect button at its right:

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4. Wait a few moments for everything to populate. When it’s loaded, click the blue next to the right of Active Features. In the following screenshot, it currently says Redirection Port, Serial-over-LAN, IDE-Redirect.

5. In the Intel AMT Features dialog, check KVM Remote Desktop. OK out.

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Switch to the Remote Desktop tab and click the Connect button. You’ll be rewarded with whatever is currently on the console of the target system. If you need to send a CTRL+ALT+DEL, there’s a button in the lower left.

I’ll leave it to you to explore the rest of the application.

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CONFIGURING RAID I wasn’t able to capture a solid screen shot of the controller’s prompt during boot, but you’ll see it if you watch for it. CTRL+I is the hotkey combination. If you’re having trouble with video initializing too slowly, just start slowly pressing the combination during the Dell logo screen and you should have no troubles. I will illustrate how to build the RAID-1 array for your hosts. I cannot display the RAID-5 or -10 build that you’ll use on your storage server because it does not have an AMT, but I will talk about the options that you’ll need to pick. Upon entering the RAID interface, you’ll see all of the available physical disks as nonRAID.

Start by pressing Enter with 1. Create RAID Volume highlighted. This will take you to the CREATE VOLUME MENU.

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The first thing that you’ll need to do is name the volume. On my first go-round, I named my volume “Hyper-V”. The first host accepted it, but the second one rejected it because it decided that the hyphen was a special character and didn’t like it. I recommend that you not use any special characters. Enter the name that you like and press TAB to switch to the RAID Level field. Special note for the storage server: I chose to create two separate logical disks on my storage server’s RAID array. The first is for Windows and the second is for everything else. If you’re going to do that as well, name and size this RAID volume for Windows. Your options for RAID Level will be automatically made available depending on what the host detects in the system. For the Hyper-V hosts, your choices will be RAID-0 or RAID-1. The storage server will allow you to choose between RAID-0, RAID-1, RAID-5, and RAID-10. For the Hyper-V host, use the up and down arrow keys to select RAID-1. For the storage server, use the up and down arrow keys to select RAID-5 or RAID-10, depending on which you prefer.

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When you pick RAID-1 with two disks, the system figures out what to do. Therefore, everything except Capacity is unavailable. For a RAID-5, you’ll need to select the disks that are to be part of the array. TAB to that field and press Enter. You’ll be shown a screen with all available disks. Use the up and down arrows to move between them and press Spacebar to select them. A selected disk will have a green triangle to its left. When you’re done selecting disks, press Enter. For a RAID other than 1, you’ll need to select the Strip[sic] Size. I’ve read a lot of material on choosing the optimal stripe size throughout my career, including recently, and I still don’t have a clear view of what’s really important. The wider the stripe (the more bits), the more data that must be read or written in a single pass. For writing out long chunks of data in sequence, a wide stripe is sort of a natural choice. A narrow stripe allows the system to store smaller chunks of data more effectively, but reading and writing larger amounts of data requires more I/O operations to do the same amount of work. So, I just chose a 64KB stripe width for my RAID-5 just like I have for years. If you spent the time to benchmark them all out, I think that you’d only see meaningful differences between the very smallest and the very largest, and which way it went would depend upon the criteria of your benchmark. 64KB will result in a solid all-purpose storage array.

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Your final choice here is Capacity. For the Hyper-V hosts, I left it at its default of allocating all capacity to create a single volume. On the storage host, I created a 100GB volume named “Windows”. When that was created, I went back in and created another volume that contained the rest of the space in a volume called “Storage”. This controller only allows you to create two volumes per array. The final step is to Create Volume. TAB to that and press Enter. You’ll be prompted one final time to create the volume. Press Y to confirm.

You’ll be returned to the main screen. Verify that you now have a RAID volume defined and that it is built the way that you desire. If you need to create another volume on remaining space, start with option 1 again. If you made a mistake, you can use option 2 to delete a particular volume or option 3 to throw out everything. Once you’re satisfied, choose option 6 (or press ESC). The host will reboot.

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INSTALLING AN OPERATING SYSTEM On the Hyper-V hosts, you can install using the DVD drive in the traditional fashion. I won’t cover that. Also on the Hyper-V hosts, you can install using AMT. On any of the hosts, you can install from a USB key.

INSTALLING FROM USB KEY I like the USB key installation method because it’s all but foolproof and you can easily add things that you want to the installation image. I outlined one method for preparing a USB key as a bootable ISO in the beginning of this blog article: http://www.altaro. com/hyper-v/free-script-configure-a-hyper-v-host/. That’s pretty easy, but I found an even easier way. First, get the ISO of Windows Server or Hyper-V Server that you want to install. Next, go to this article: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/windowsusb-dvd-download-tool. It’s got instructions for and a link to a download tool on Codeplex that will prepare the USB key for you.

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Insert the prepared USB key into the host and press F12 during boot to select the USB drive.

Windows installation will proceed just as it would from a DVD drive, and be faster as well.

INSTALLING VIA AMT As much as I want to like the ability to use AMT to install Windows, it’s my least favorite. The remote control session uses VNC and VNC is just not a reliable connection method. If it’s what you must do, then it’s what you must do. This is one thing that MeshCommander turned out to be really awful at, so I would actually say that either of the other tools are superior for this one task.

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These instructions are for MeshCommander. 1. Connect to the host as shown earlier and switch to the Remote Desktop tab. 2. Shut the system down, if it’s not already off. 3. On the toolbar, click IDE-R:

4. On the Storage Redirection dialog, click the Choose File button on the .ISO line.

5. It’s strange, but you must pick something for the IMG file as well. I renamed an empty text file to have an IMG extension and it liked that just fine. I also picked a different ISO without renaming it, and it liked that too. Nothing worked when I added an image to a powered-on system, though. 6. On the toolbar, click Power Actions.

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7. In the Power Actions dialog, click Power on to IDE-R CDROM.

8. The system will turn on immediately. Close the Power Actions dialog and watch the screen. You’ll be prompted to press any key in order to boot from the image. Even though this method works (usually), it is extremely slow and prone to disconnects.

WHERE TO GO FROM HERE This document introduced you to a solid build for a small business or a test lab environment. I encourage you to explore it further; especially learn what the AMT can do for you. Set up the storage server to host an SMB share for your hosts. If you don’t like Windows, look into alternative operating systems to load for storage and host iSCSI connections. Look to the Altaro blog for guidance on configuring a full-blown cluster environment. The UPS can be attached to one of your hosts via a USB connection to signal a loss of power. It’s got plenty of available battery to operate all three hosts and the switch, so use the connected host to trigger an orderly shutdown of all three. Expect to see many references to this cluster in my future articles and eBooks on the Altaro blog. Happy computing!

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ABOUT ALTARO Altaro Software (www.altaro.com) is a fast growing developer of easy to use backup solutions used by over 30,000 customers to back up and restore both Hyper-V and VMware-based virtual machines, built specifically for Small and mid-market business with up to 50 host servers. Altaro take pride in their software and their high level of personal customer service and support, and it shows; Founded in 2009, Altaro already service over 30,000 satisfied customers worldwide and are a Gold Microsoft Partner for Application Development and Technology Alliance VMware Partner.

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ABOUT ERIC SIRON

I have worked in the information technology field since 1998. I have designed, deployed, and maintained server, desktop, network, and storage systems. I provided all levels of support for businesses ranging from single-user through enterprises with thousands of seats. Along the way, I have achieved a number of Microsoft certifications and was a Microsoft Certified Trainer for four years. In 2010, I deployed a Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 system and began writing about my experiences. Since then, I have been writing regular blogs and contributing what I can to the Hyper-V community through forum participation and free scripts.

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